Page 48 of Night in a Waste Land

They both froze. She heard him take a quick breath the same moment that she did. Their gazes locked. She watched his pupils enlarge – not unlike the dilated, desirous awe she’d seen in John’s followers.

Then he dampened his lips, his gaze dropped to his task, and he began to carefully clean the blood from her throat.

It was soothing, once she got over the fact that it was Lance doing it. He dipped the towel again and again; the only sounds were their breathing, and the drum of raindrops on the window pane, and the tinkle of water droplets back into the bowl when he wrung the towel out. The warmth of it lulled her. When his hand shifted downward, and gently cupped the side of her neck, her eyelids fluttered and she leaned into his touch.

They froze again – or, he did. She didn’t feel the flicker of doubt this time. Not even when he set the towel aside with a murmured, “That’s all of it.” His gaze went to his own hand; to the thumb he rested hesitantly in the hollow of her throat. “Sorry.”

Her voice sounded uncharacteristically low and smoky. Probably from being strangled, she tried to reason. “For what?”

“This is probably – I shouldn’t touch you here. After…” His hand flexed.

“No,” she said, quickly, before he could draw back. “It’s fine. It – it feels nice.”

His eyes widened.

“I’m not afraid of you. Of you touching me.”

His next breath shuddered. “Not even here?”

“No. Not anywhere.”

His gaze flicked up, touched her eyes, her mouth, searching, then slid back to where he cupped her throat. His thumb stroked up and down, up and down. “It’s not just bruises. It looks like heburnedyou.” His tone hardened at the end; a muscle in his cheek twitched.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Only a normal amount.”

He snorted. His thumb trailed up, hand shifting with it, until the pad of his thumb rested against her chin; until she felt his fingertips flirting against her nape, stroking at the baby-soft hairs that had fallen out of her braid there.

Amusement blossomed on his face, and then bled into sadness, more of that desperation she kept seeing him direct toward her. “I meant it,” he said softly. “About not trying to get yourself killed.” It wasn’t an order this time, but a plea. “Stop throwing yourself into bad situations like that. Please.”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

His thumb shifted, skimmed slowly down her jaw. She wasn’t sure he was conscious of doing it; his gaze mapped her face, and he looked enthralled. “You said he was inside your head. That he knew who we were.”

It was hard to concentrate with his hand on her, his thumb doing that, drawing little thrills across her skin.

But she managed to say, “He knew about Beck.”

Again, Lance stilled. He withdrew his hand. His lips pressed together, and she could see the shutters coming down behind his eyes. Beck. She loved Beck, she missed him, was trying to send herself to hell to be with him, and Lance knew that, and he wasn’t going to press, to overreach. Was going to respect her grief, even if he didn’t agree with it, even if he wanted her.

She was going to blame it on blacking out. On being afraid. On the bruises on her throat, and the new, terrifying knowledge that some conduits were apparently psychic. She would blame it on some or all of that if he asked her why she did it.

She pitched forward, gripped his face in both her hands, and kissed him.

Fitting, she guessed, since she’d had to make the first move with Beck, too.

Thought of him didn’t have her rocking back and reeling, not like she’d expected. She closed her eyes, and opened her lips against Lance’s; let him feel the hot, soft flick of her tongue.

He stilled a moment, breath held.

And then, blessedly, reacted.

His first breath was a groan. His mouth opened against hers, hungry and wet and so eager right away. He gripped her waist, and urged her back onto the sofa. In moments he had her stretched out across it and was poised above her, kissing her ravenously, one hand braced on the sofa arm above her head, the other splayed across her ribs, as big, and heavy, and strong as she’d imagined.

She’d spent so long denying herself so much as a fantasy, steeling herself, steeped in her grief and determination, that she’d forgotten how good it felt to kiss. To sink her fingers into broad shoulders and lift up into a man’s touch.

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